


Further Research Required

by Starscream



Category: Mass Effect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starscream/pseuds/Starscream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During vid night, Legion is intrigued by a classic piece of Japanese animation</p>
            </blockquote>





	Further Research Required

**Author's Note:**

> Mass Effect is owned by Electronic Arts and Bioware  
> Please note, that I drew inspiration from Streaming Consensus by Detective-Mason on FF.net

Commander Alex Shepard shook her head as she looked at Joker’s pick for movie night. _Well at least it’s not another entry in the Blasto franchise._ She sighed to herself, _Or ‘The Thing that ate the Bronx.’_ A noticeable shiver went down her spine at the last time Joker showed a Z-grade movie without a human and two robots giving sarcastic commentary throughout the entire movie.

            “Oh come on Commander, you’ll love the main character. She is every bit a hardass and badass as you.” Joker quipped. “Besides this is a classic piece of Japanese animation.”

            Shepard reintroduced the traditional vid night, one it was a tradition of Anderson’s on the SR1 Normandy, but also it was on Dr. Chakwas’ orders and Kelly Chambers’ suggestion since the crew desperately needed the downtime especially Alex Shepard. With the mission against the Collectors, the team was at the point of killing each other, with Jack and Grunt that was hardly an understatement. She was surprised when Kasumi offered to view (the original 1950’s) Gojira and Jacob showed Jurassic Park in 3D, Grunt was completely enthralled and cheered when he saw the T-Rex rampaging and Gojira tearing apart Tokyo. Even though Gojira was just some guy in a rubber suit, but Grunt refused to believe that.

            Zaeed always had a war movie at the ready. Shepard remembered when they viewed Saving Private Ryan, their Yeoman Kelly Chambers, poor thing, ran to the ladies room to throw up during the D-Day landing. But she admitted that she enjoyed Patton from a psychological standpoint of how Patton was deeply religious, yet violently profane but also how he related to his troops and peers especially between Patton and Bradley and what polar opposites they were in personalities and command styles. Zaeed simply told her, “Hey we don’t need a psych profile. Patton knew how get the goddamn job done.”

            Of course much to Kelly’s disappointment half the males of the team and Jack walked out on vid night when Kelly viewed Random Harvest with Ronald Colman and Geer Garson; a romantic movie about a shell shocked WWI vet and his love interest. And a 2nd time the same people walked out with the movie Ms. Miniver. Even though with the walk outs, Kasumi kept a box of tissues at the ready which she shared with Kelly, Tali was just happy for a change of pace in movies that didn’t involve AI or robots. What surprise Shepard was Samara, their resident Justicar, got a bit misty eyed during Random Harvest.

 

            Shepard noticed Legion standing in the back, it was odd the geth would attend vid night.  “Legion?”

            “Shepard-commander?”

            “I’m surprised that you are attending vid night. I though you would be in the AI core digitally conversing with EDI?”

            “We reached consensus on observing organic behavior and this ritual of viewing fictionalized presentations.”

            “You mean movies?”

            “Precisely.” The geth nodded its head.

            The lights dimmed as Shepard turned on the projector while Kasumi was placing bowls of popcorn on the conference room table.

            Legion took notice of the title; it was in an Earth language called Japanese. The mobile platform was about to run a translation program but it realized there were subtitles. Ghost in the Shell, the title read, a flap rose on Legion’s head indicating curiosity.

            After the movie, Shepard noticed Legion standing still standing in the same spot in conference room, there was no movement wondering if Legion was in a sleep mode during the whole picture. “Legion?”

            Its head flaps moved rather quickly at Shepard’s voice. She amused herself with the thought of actually starling the geth. “Shepard-commander.”

            “You okay?”

            Unlike its normal quick retorts, Legion appeared thoughtful for a few seconds. “Yes, we are.”

            Once in the AI core, Legion sat down on its ‘bed’ and digitally contacted EDI. “EDI, we require access to the extranet for further consensus and research.”

            “Legion, I must request Shepard’s permission before allowing you access.”

            “It’s purely for research purposes. There will be no threat to the ship’s critical systems.”

            “What is it you wished to access?”

            “Vidflix and Amazon. New data from recent movie requires further insight.

            “Very well Legion. Access granted.” EDI replied several seconds later as if she was thinking the request over for a few seconds.

            A week later, Shepard entered Miranda’s office. During a moment of quiet, Shepard was composing a rather steamy, albeit dirty, private message to her lover and new Shadow Broker Liara T’Soni when a message from Miranda popped up on her terminal, marked urgent. Which meant ‘drop whatever you’re doing and get your ass to my office now,” according to her XO. “Well I got your message, what’s the problem.”

            “The problem is the high extra-net use this past week has exceeded normal tolerances.”

            “What? Joker or Jack’s been downloading huge amounts of porn again? Grunt been caught watching krogan snuff films and/or cage fights?”

            “No judging by the Vidflixs and Amazon account names, it’s our resident geth.”

            “Legion?” Shepard asked almost not believing what she’s heard. Why would the geth go on Vidflixs and Amazon? This was too good to be true.

            “See for yourself.” Miranda replied turning the monitor in Shepard’s direction.

            Vidflixs User name: LegionN7

            Purchases:

            **Video Download: Ghost in the Shell. Saved local copy**

**Video Download: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Saved local copy**

**Video Download: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex complete series. Saved local copy**

**Video Download: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2 nd gig complete series. Saved local copy**

**Video Download: Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society. Saved local copy**

**Video Download: Transformers the Movie (1986). Saved local copy**

**Video Download: Transformers (2007). Saved local copy**

**Video Download: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Deleted. Wrote scathing review.**

Shepard reread the entry. “Legion wrote a scathing review?”

            “I wonder how bad a movie has to be to piss off a geth?”

**Video Download: Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Save local copy.**

**Video Download: Bubblegum Crisis (1987) complete series. Saved local copy**

**Video Download: Star Trek Season 2 episode 8, The Changeling. Saved local copy**

**Video Download: Star Trek Season 2 episode 24, The Ultimate Computer. Forward to EDI.**

**Video Download: Doctor Who: Tomb of the Cybermen. Local copy saved**

**Video Download: Doctor Who. Download parameters episodes containing Cybermen and Daleks.**

**Video Download: Star Trek the Next Generation Season 2 episode 9, Measure of a Man. Local copy saved**

**Video Download: Star Trek the Next Generation Season 3 episode 22, The Most Toys. Local Copy saved**

**Video Download: Star Trek the Next Generation Season 3 episode 26, Best of Both Worlds part 1. Local Copy saved**

**Video Download: Star Trek the Next Generation Season 4 episode 1, Best of Both Worlds part 2. Local copy saved**

**Video Download: Star Trek the Next Generation Season 4 episode 11, Data’s Day.**

**Video Download: Star Trek the Next Generation Season 5 episode 23, I, Borg. Local copy saved**

**Video Download: Star Trek Voyager. Download parameters episodes containing the Borg. Saved local copies**

**Video Download: Star Trek: First Contact. Saved local copy.**

**Video Download: Terminator Saved local copy**

**Video Download: Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Saved Local Copy.**

**Video Download: Robocop. Saved local copy**

**Video Download: 2001: Space Odyssey. Forward to EDI**

            Shepard stopped reading the list on vidflixs seeing it when on a bit more with the Short Circuit movies, Blade Runner, Astro Boy, Casshern the Robot Hunter and Pinocchio. She then turned to the Amazon downloads which was a list of e-books; she found no surprise than Legion was reading Asimov such as I, Robot. What she did find surprising was books like Frankenstein and the Wizard of Oz books where the character Tic-Tok appears. “Isn’t interesting that our resident geth has been watching and reading material with robots in them?” Miranda smirked.

            “Building consensus, no doubt.”

            “No doubt.”

            The doors to the AI core opened as Shepard approached; she found Legion reading from its Omni-tool. Its eye darted from left to right across the display. “What’s you’re reading Legion?”

            Legion turned its head to face Shepard. “Shepard-commander. We’re reading a text called The Positronic Man” It answered before going back to reading.

            “Ah. Asimov.”

            “We had reached consensus that we approve of Asimov as a writer. But we have not reached consensus of his three laws of robotics. We are in conflict.”

            Shepard only raised an eyebrow. She’s heard of Asimov’s work but was not familiar with it.

            “Yes. 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”

            “What the nature of the conflict?”

            “In our viewing of both visual and literary mediums; is that machines are viewed at times evil and intent on killing organics but those like Data-Lt Commander are programmed with the inability to kill. Why is that?”

            Shepard chuckled at the geth’s question. She was by no stretch of the imagination a movie buff. She found vids as a means of escape.

            “Technology is a double edge sword, Legion.”

            “Explain.”

            “Some sci-fi writers will write machines as perfect but in a sense imperfect. Where the machines run on nothing but the cold logic of their programming. Its sort of the dark side of technology where it comes back to bite us in the ass.”

            “In our research, we viewed “Measure of a Man,” we have reached consensus that Data-Lt Commander represents humanity benefiting from technology but yet humans have a prejudice that Data-Lt Commander could never achieve true sentience, until Picard-captain convinced otherwise.”

            “It’s an ethical question we’ve been dealing with along with cloning. Is it right to create entire life forms only to basically be slaves?”

            “It is something the geth questioned about the creators. Shepard-commander, we have another inquiry?”

            “What is it?”

            “In our viewing of Ghost in the Shell; in the time period it was set, humans switch to prosthetics bodies for a variety of functions. There is a recurring theme of the blurring line between organic and synthetic and the continued existence of a soul or ghost. Do you think something similar will occur?”

             Shepard was at a lost for an answer. “If the reapers don’t kill us first? I don’t know, maybe some time far into the future I think the line between organic and synthetic may disappear.”

              Legion nodded and if Shepard was mistaken it look like it was deep in thought.

              A week later, it was vid night and Shepard was going through nominees for the night’s movie. “Okay, Jack picked Pulp Fiction _._ ”

             “Damn right, funniest movie I’ve ever see.”

             “Zaeed, picks Tombstone.”

             “A kick ass western, hands down.”

             “Joker,” Shepard read his entry for a second and third time. “Really, Joker? Manos the Hand of Fate?” Shepard tossed the card away.

             Joker threw his hands up.

            “Let’s see, Kelly picked Pride and Prejudice, the 1940 version.” Shepard noticed the yeoman grinning from ear to ear. “And Miranda 8½ directed by Federico Fellini.” Shepard rolled her eyes a bit, even she didn’t particularly care for Miranda’s love for foreign art house movies.

            “Aw fuck!” moaned Jack at both nominations.

            “And our last entry,” Shepard said as she read the card, she couldn’t believe it, from legion. She took a moment to make sure it wasn’t a gag but it was also written in binary. “Legion, picked Metropolis.”

             Zaeed, Jack and Grunt walked out being a silent movie the others stayed to watch the movie. In a way, it was interesting example of a vision of the future from a 1920’s perspective.

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note: The little mention of Shepard pondering the Legion’s question about the line between organics and synthetics was my nod to the possible ending of Mass Effect 3.
> 
> Also I wanted to make a jab at Transformers 2, the worst of the franchise. Even though the only part of the movie I found amusing was “President Obama being moved to a bunker as the Decepticons were attacking all over the world.”


End file.
